


Give us enough tropes and we'll hang ourselves

by theunknownfate



Category: Watchmen - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Short, kinkmeme prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-04
Updated: 2014-06-04
Packaged: 2018-02-03 09:43:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1740083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theunknownfate/pseuds/theunknownfate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for this prompt on the kinkmeme: Rorschach finds out that everyone has gotten addicted to TV Tropes and thinks it's a conspiracy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Give us enough tropes and we'll hang ourselves

It made sense, in a way. 

Veidt owned most of the media, had a hand in the vast majority of all of the images being presented to the public. He was responsible for what passed for pop culture these days. He got to pick what was considered 'normal'. His commercials told the world what they needed to be socially acceptable, what to spend money on. How much of American's current culture had come from him? How much of the absurdity and the depravity that Rorschach had to look at everyday had been Veidt's idea?

In every window, behind every door, in front of every face there were flickering screens. Behind every eye the same messages was being processed. _Buy this. Dress like this. Respond like this. Emulate this. Look like this. Disapprove of this. Act like this._ Be _like this_. The sway Veidt held over the public was disgusting and a little frightening. 

Rorschach would call it a conspiracy. It was, of course. It was just that it wasn't a secret. Everyone knew they were being manipulated. They were perfectly aware, even interested in the ways their minds were being exploited. He had overheard citizens talking about it, laughing about it. They talked about tropes, old and hoary, but that still got them right here, complete with a hand clasping at the heart. It made his teeth grind.

Was it sentiment that kept bringing them back to suck at the same teats? Nostalgia? He glared at the cologne ad billboard over his head. Was it just easier to declare that humans in all their complexity were really just a series of predictable themes. Were they that susceptible to archaic tradition? They would pick apart coffee commercials for underlying meaning, while living hollow lives without any. 

He would say that they needed to be woken up, rattled from this complacency, but they already knew what was being done to them. They just didn't care. What would it take for them to take back their own personalities? How much longer until they finally grew bored of the same cliches? What new bread and circuses would Veidt throw at them to keep them baaing and chewing in their paddocks?

They weren't innocents. They knew. They just couldn't be bothered to kick out or even struggle under the butcher's knife anymore. What would it take to change that. What would have to be destroyed or brought to life? What would have to burn to singe the wool away from so many eyes? Who would have to die to shock the world out of it?


End file.
